Mako Ishizuka is an artist who attempts to intervene in the psychological and physical distances that emerge where the everyday meets the world, using her own experiences and imagination as a springboard. Her view is communicated in a personal manner, taking various forms, such as visual installation, social project, act, essay, and combination of them.
Having lived in various societies as “others” as well as being not at ease in her mother tongue Japanese, Mako started to work on the project After-Ripening & Corruption at Arts Maebashi museum in 2016, which revolves around the cultural and language translations in the lives of people moving. Playing with rules, norms, and logics, she scoops up the shades in the process of movements such as emotions and assumed errors.
Since 2018 the project has grown out to Södertälje Konsthall in Sweden, with the help from the locals, where more than half of the residents have foreign roots. It has developed further at Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna in 2019, observing social manners and physical gestures through social experiments and workshops.
Mako Ishizuka studied interdisciplinary studies (culture/philosophy/sociology) in Japan and free art at Rietveld Academy in the Netherlands and Malmö Art Academy in Sweden. Having lived in various societies in Europe, Latin America, and Turkey, she is currently moving around pivoting from Stockholm and Nishinomiya.
For her projects, she has received opportunities such as residencies at IASPIS in Sweden, Cité des Arts/Institut Français in France, Capacete in Brazil, Cittadelarte in Italy, and Production Prize from Pistoletto Foundation.
She also participated at Fittja Pavilion at 14th Architecture Biennale in Venice, *Frictions in the Globalisation” at EHESS (Institute for Higher Studies in Social Sciences) in Paris, and “Connecting Scapes” at Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.